Thursday, 16 October 2014

12 Counterintuitive Health Tips That Really Work

Post 3 - Tips 7 to 9

Tip 7. Ditch diet soda to lose weight.

You should ditch all soda, including diet. Research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health revealed that overweight and obese adults who drank diet beverages ate more calories from food than those who drank regular soda. Additionally, a University of Texas study found that diet soda drinkers had a 70 percent greater increase in waist circumference than non-drinkers over the course of about 10 years.

"In addition, many people think 'low-fat,' 'low-sugar' or 'light' means fewer calories, but that's not always true," says Goodson. "Typically when manufacturers cut something out and the end result tastes just as good, they've added something like additional sugar."

Tip 8. Drink a hot beverage to cool off.

Which will cool you off faster on a steamy summer morning: iced coffee or hot? Two recent studies say the latter -- and so do other cultures where drinking hot tea in hot weather is the norm, like in India. When you sip a hot beverage, your body senses the change in temperature and increases your sweat production. Then, as the sweat evaporates from your skin, you cool off naturally.

Tip 9. Exercise when you're tired.

After a long, exhausting workday, exercising sounds like the last thing you'd want to do, but getting your sweat on will actually energize you. Fatigue along with mood and depression improved after a single 30-minute moderate intensity exercise session, according to a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. "Everything we do uses oxygen, so when you exercise it helps you work more efficiently and you don't tire as easily," says Nutting. "You also function better mentally."